Thursday, 28 June 2018

This card is much simpler than the last card in the fact that I am only going to be stamping the outline stamps with white, and using one colour of card for both the card base and the card panel.

So I have chosen purple to do this card, as I thought the white would stand out beautifully on it. So I stamped a range of leaf and flower outline stamps. I used this from the Altenew Garden treasures stamp set, as it had a lovely range, but you could use any stamp set or a mixture and would get similar results.

I started out by stamping a range of the flowers and leaves, quite a few, as I wasn’t sure how many or what I was going to use on this card.

I cut them out with the co-ordinating die set, you could also fussy cut them out.

I got the card base ready, I made a card base with the purple card, then cut a silver rectangle (110mm x 164mm) in some silver mirror card, and then another card panel of the purple card that was 108mm x 159mm. I stuck down the silver onto the card base with double sided tape but left the top purple panel until I had done the sentiment.

This I stamped on a white card strip with the stamp to say ‘You are’ and ‘cherished’, then trimmed it down so it was a thinner strip, stuck it down on the purple card panel and trimmed it to fit, then stuck that down onto the silver card with double sided tape also.

That is my card base ready for the floral arrangement. I fiddled around with how I wanted that to look, then when I was happy I used a piece of ‘press and seal’ to stick onto the arrangement, so that I could keep it all together, then flipped it over and started putting clear foam tape on each piece layer by layer, flipping it back onto the card front until all but the last few flowers were remaining, then used a combination of foam tape and glue to stick the last top flowers down.

The last touch was to scatter some purple sequins around the perimeter of the floral arrangement, some poking out underneath and some fully.

That is the card complete. Here is a video of me making the card, if you prefer to watch it in full HD on my Youtube channel then that is here.

Wednesday, 13 June 2018

This card is using the same die set as my last card, but this time I am only using the outline dies for the flower and leaf.

This card was a lot more complicated to do, and I wouldn’t tackle it if you haven’t got lots of patience. It wasn’t hard, just time consuming, but sometimes it is about the enjoyment of making the card. This card could be done with many many colour combinations, gold on white would be elegant, black on white would be very sriking, or some really bold colours would also look great.

I started out cutting out some of the roses and leaves from some hot pink card, and laying them out on a card base, to see how I could lay it out, Once I was happy with the amount of flowers and leaves and how it would look, I took a card panel, slightly bigger than the card base, and started cutting out the flowers and leaves where I want the embeds to go, making sure I saved all the little negative bits that came out, as I would need them to put back into the gaps later. Where the flowers crossed over a leaf. I probably wouldn’t need all of the leaf negative pieces, but I kept them just in case I needed them later.

Now to put it all back together like a jigsaw. I took some double sided sticky paper, as that meant I wouldn’t need to glue back all the bits, it was the same size as my card panel that I have cut the flowers out of, and peeled one of the layers of paper off to leave the sticky exposed. I stuck the card panel that had the flowers cut out of it onto this, then I started putting the coloured die cuts into the places where they needed to go, and then all the little pieces were found and put back into the appropriate places until it was all one complete piece, but with roses and leaves embedded into it. Lastly I stamped a sentiment onto the middle of the card, using the misti, so that I didn’t mess it up, that would have been heart breaking.

Lastly I trimmed the card panel along the top, peeled the paper down from the top, put it down along the top of the card base, peeled the rest of the backing paper and stuck it on, turned it over and cut the excess off around the card base, then trimmed a small amount off one side, as it was looking a little lopsided. And there is a nice flat card to send in the mail.

I am not sure if it was worth all the effort or not, but I like it!

The video on making the card is below, or if you prefer to watch in full HD then my You tube channel is here.